In the mid-17th century the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, founded by the [French] King’s painters and sculptors, established a genre hierarchy dominated by painting. In 2015, after the investiture of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, his Minister of Canadian Heritage Mélanie Joly made “the digital” her hobbyhorse: the dissemination of Canadian content on digital platforms, and the development of the digital arts industry. Compelled by evolution and progress, how can painting - one the of oldest mediums - be inserted into a contemporary art discourse in the digital era? Artists Gabriela Avila-Yiptong and Florence Yee delve into this question further.

Gabriela Avila-Yiptong is an emerging visual artist currently residing in Ottawa. She graduated from the University of Ottawa in 2015 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, specializing in painting. Her work has been exhibited in various spaces such as Galerie SAW Gallery and Galerie Art Mûr. She will be participating in an exhibition with Montreal-based fiber artist Allyson Rousseau at Studio Sixty-Six in November 2018 and she is currently preparing works for her first juried exhibition with the City of Ottawa in 2019.

Florence Yee is a 2.5 generation, Cantonese-struggling visual artist based in Tkaronto/Toronto and Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. Her interest in Cantonese-Canadian history has fueled an art practice committed to dismantling institutional and casual ideals of Eurocentric hetero-patriarchy, as well as examining the daily life of her diaspora.

Exhibitions  

Participating Artists: Gabriela Avila-Yiptong (Ottawa) Florence Yee (Toronto)
Curator(s):
Credits: Finding Myself at the MMFA III, Florence Yee, 2015